“The Commando Raid” was the highlight of the week for many of the campers. It was all that they talked about from the moment that they arrived at camp until their parents came to pick them up. The game was started when everyone met at the campfire ring and then each tribe was given a clue that led them to a different part of the camp. It could be the swimming pool or the ball field, for example. There were six clues and if your tribe was able to collect all six before time was up then you won your part of the game. If all of the tribes were able to get their clues then the campers had the bragging rights to be able to say that were the first to ever beat the counselors. The game was rigged however, so that the campers never beat the counselors. Fr. Early was the only one who knew how to score the game so he made sure that the counselors always won.
One of the ways that the game was rigged is that not all of the campers were worth the same amount of points. A first year camper was only worth one point but, the more seniority that you had, the more points that you were worth. A camper who had been coming back to Camp Van Dorn for five years would be worth a hundred points. These were the campers that the counselors were determined to “capture.” In order to capture a camper the counselor merely had to tap him and say “you are caught.” Since Fr. Early had told the chiefs to have the kids lie down in the woods whenever they saw a counselor because he didn’t want anyone running away, capturing the high points campers was relatively easy. Everyone knew who the high value campers were because Fr. Early had put up a “Ten Most Wanted” list up on the bulletin board. It was considered a high honor to make the list and by the time of the beginning of the game, everyone knew who was on the list.
Danny loved the Commando Raid. During the off season he collected a bunch of gear to help him be a better chief during the raid. For example, he bought camouflage vests and combat gear from the army surplus store in Pemberton. The softball games were right after dinner so Danny rushed his campers to the ball field and had them run through drills, like learning how to shimmy on the ground so that they could sneak up to the target to find a clue. He got to the campfire ring early and had all of his campers put ashes onto their faces. During the raid itself, Danny insisted that there was “no talking in the ranks” whenever they came in range of a camper-capturing counselor. And his tribe learned how to protect the campers on the ten most wanted list, mostly by sacrificing a first year camper. Danny knew that once a camper had been captured then the counselor had to escort him to the jail, or the main parking lot, where Fr. Early was waiting for them.
Fr. Early also liked to gin up the game. Every camper who landed in jail had a star stamped on their face. It was just an ink stamper but it took on magical powers at Camp Van Dorn. You had one star stamped on your face for every point that you were worth. If a chief happened to be by the jail on his way to get his next clue then he could do a “jail break.” This entailed no more than running through the jail, tagging the captured campers out, and then moving on to the next objective. What this really meant was that the high valued campers could be caught several times and by the end of the game their face was filled with blue stars. To pour a little salt into the wound, Fr. Early chided the campers who were caught multiple times and made sure that the stamp was well inked before he applied it to their face.
Some of the counselors really got excited about the raid as well. They were forced to carry a big lantern with them so that that they could be spotted about a mile away. Then, when they did approach a tribe, who by this time was hiding off the trail and in the woods, they pretended that the light from the lantern was in their eyes so they could not possibly see the campers who were lying on the ground. Scott Hancock liked to bring an old shampoo bottle with him that he filled with warm water. While the camper had his face buried in his arms to hide from the counselors, Scott would take out the bottle and squeeze it so that a steady stream landed on the back of the unsuspecting camper. The boy would jump up and scream until Scott showed him the bottle to let the camper know that it was just water, and not urine, that was streaming down his back. And by the way, “you are captured,” and the boy was sent to jail.
Other counselors were not into the game at all. Hawkeye said that the raid was too militaristic and, since he was a pacifist, he took his lantern off to a corner of the camp and refused to participate. Hawkeye stuck with his story but the rest of the counselors suspected that he was just too lazy to walk around the camp for an hour. Probably the real reason was somewhere in the middle of these two stories. Hawkeye didn’t want to be the bad guy and he would be forced into that role if he captured campers and sent them to jail. Rather than spoil everyone else’s fun, and not to make a show of his protest because that wasn’t his way, Hawkeye put himself in time out in a silent protest.
Another way that the game was rigged was because it was the chiefs who dropped clues at each station. The trick was to drop the clues without any of the campers noticing but also they had to make sure that the campers could find the clue. This took a little bit of artfulness in that the counselors had to hide the clue in their hand and drop it while sweeping the field in a dramatic arm swing. The older campers knew that the game was a farce and part of the fun for them was to catch their chief dropping the clue. The younger campers had no idea that the game wasn’t real but they were so scared of the dark that didn’t notice anything except how scary the woods looked in the dark.
The Commando Raid was over after an hour of play. George rang the Gong to signal that the game was over and everyone should come out of the woods. There was a collective cheer from the campers, especially the ones who had not been captured, when they thought that they had won. The chiefs led their tribes back up to the campfire ring and Fr. Early marched the POWs up from the jail. When everyone was re-united, Fr. Early read out the results of which tribe collected all six clues and which campers had been captured. And, after carefully tallying up the points, he declared that, once again, the counselors had won the game. Of course there were boos from the boys and bragging from the counselors and a lot of pointing fingers. It was all in good fun and it was a win for everyone since no camper had been hurt and no camper had been lost. The game was designed to secure the safety of all of the boys.
Now that the Commando Raid was over, the boys were all sweaty and they smelled. If they were not forced to shower then a few of the boys would take pride in not showering for the whole week. Some of them still bragged that they refused to brush their teeth while away from home. Fr. Jubal Early instituted a rule that all campers had to take a shower after the raid because their hygiene was so bad. If they were too shy to get naked in front of their friends then they were allowed to wear their swimsuits into the shower, but they had to wash and they had to change their clothes. The trick was to get 90 kids through the shower quickly so the chiefs worked together. With just a quick swish, front, back, top, and the camper was done to be replaced by a new camper.
Some of the older campers were not shy about getting naked in front of the younger ones. Upon seeing the pubic hair on an older camper, the younger one said, “You must be a counselor”
